CHAPTER L. THE BALL.
Never had Cleo Ballard appeared so beautiful as that night. Her eyes shone brightly with excitement, her cheeks were a deep scarlet in hue, and her wonderful rounded neck and arms gleamed dazzlingly white against the black lace of her gown.
Even Sinclair roused out of his indifference to look after her in deep admiration.
"You are looking very beautiful to-night, Cleo," he said; and ten minutes afterwards Tom, passing with Rose Cranston on his arm, laid his hand on Cleo's shoulder: "You are looking unnaturally beautiful, Cleo. Anything wrong?"
"Must there necessarily be something wrong, Tom, because I am looking well?"
Tom gave her a scrutinizing glance. In spite of her quick bantering words there was something in the girl which made him think she was laboring under some intense excitement, and that it was this very excitement that was buoying her up and lending her a brilliancy that was almost unnatural. Tom knew the reaction must come. All through the evening he watched his cousin. She was surrounded almost constantly, save when she danced. Later in the evening he pushed his way to her side. She was resting after a dance.
"Cleo, you are dancing too much," he said, noting the girl's flushed cheeks.